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Scarlett Aegis
Scarlett is a female re'har of the re'hari breed in her early twenties with expressive jade green eyes that have a shimmering effect. She has soft golden orange fur covered with ornate black stripes and a long, slender tail with a tuft of thick fur on the tip. Her unruly fiery red hair is worn loose and her ears are delicately rounded. She has a shapely figure with athletic legs. Currently Roughing the wilds of Peregorne, looking for various rare gems and stones to complete her collection of gemstones. Basic Background Though she looks to be in her early twenties, by re'hari standards, she is actually eighteen. She spent a lot of time fending for herself on the dirty streets of Kaezar until the Orphanage was finally opened. She was one of the older children when they first began admitting the orphans and waifs of the city into the donated building. Helping with cooking, cleaning, and teaching the other children, she rarely had time to herself, but she loved feeling like she was part of something. She always knew how to calm a crying infant or make a scraped knee feel better. Then the plague hit Kaezar, and she was forced to watch helpless as many of those she cared for perished. She did all she could to help; her latent powers of empathy surfacing in the time of need. Soon after she was told it was time for her to move on. She was of adult age, and had to make a life for herself. She has dreams of being a great treasure hunter, finding lost relics and becoming famous. Scarlett's First Adventure The man at the tavern had sworn on all his relatives’ graves that there was a chest of amazing wealth hidden in a cave somewhere between the coastal cliffs and the bogs. “Ye canna miss it, lassie,” he’d told her as he guzzled his ale. “ . . . Thar be a tree, a great big tree all covered in vines, what sits atop this cave . . .” Scarlett bounded up the hill, her tail twitching happily. Hoping to get to the cave before midmorning, she had left her room near the Crossroads the previous evening, and had stopped around midnight to set camp. Her excitement had gotten the better of her, however, and she’d set out again after only three or four hours of sleep. When she reached the top, she paused to rest and survey the land in front of her. The sun was just coming up over the horizon, and she was able to clearly see the edge of the bogs in the distance. Shading her eyes, she made sure there weren’t any veckles or particularly violent wubwuvs in her immediate vicinity, then squinted to see the surrounding landscape a little better. Scarlett studied a potential cave entrance a few hundred yards in front of her. “It’s a . . . fairly . . . big . . . tree . . .”she said to herself. She squinted a little harder. “ . . . And it does have . . . a few . . . viney . . . thingies, I guess.” It was the most likely thing she’d seen so far, so she decided it was worth a shot. Her tail swished gently as she plotted her course. There were two or three blind spots from her vantage point; she could avoid most of them altogether, but there were two large outcroppings of rocks that combined with curves of the land to block her view. She decided she could handle any potential threats without her scimitar, so she readied her stiletto again and made her way down. She had almost passed the second batch of rocks when she heard a loud grunt and saw a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She whirled around in time to see a flail-wielding orc charging at her from the blind side of the stone. Scarlett suspected he probably wouldn’t let her climb up and punch him in the face, and this orc looked very large, even by orc standards. Deciding that discretion is sometimes the better part of valor, Scarlett yelped and set off at a run towards the cave entrance, with the orc fairly close on her heels. She sincerely hoped she had the right cave¬—if this was one of those shallow niches, Scarlett would be caught between an orc and a hard place. The sudden darkness of the cave didn’t allow her eyes time to adjust, and Scarlett tripped and fell into the curved wall. She bounced off it, stumbling and flailing her arms to regain her balance. She barely managed to keep her grip on her stiletto as she slammed into the rock floor. She scrambled to get back to her feet just as a simultaneous THUD and “OOF!” came from behind her, followed by an incredible weight that forced her back to the floor and sent a blinding pain shooting through her arm and into her shoulder. A few moments later, Scarlett became aware that the only sound in the cave was her own heavy breathing. She looked to her injured arm, and discovered the orc lying across it. Upon closer inspection, she spotted the very tip of her stiletto sticking up through his back. “Well, that’s one problem out of the way,” she panted. After a few failed attempts, she finally managed to get her arm and knife out from under the orc. Scarlett sat down heavily against the wall and caught her breath while her injured arm mended itself. Her tail swished thoughtfully back and forth as she contemplated what awaited her deeper in the cave. She had been warned of traps, and of course a terrible curse that would blind her, make her go mad, cause all her fur and teeth to fall out, and somehow simultaneously render her sterile and curse her descendents for the rest of eternity. Scarlett had never put much stock into curses, but she had to giggle at the mental picture of an insane, bald re’hari with no teeth stumbling about with a cane. After she was healthy again, Scarlett picked herself up and peaked around the sharp bend of the cave. Darkness greeted her, so she lit one of the small torches she’d brought along and started down into the depths. Part II Scarlett made her way cautiously through the cave. She rounded another bend and lost daylight completely. In the torchlight, she constantly scanned the floor, walls, and ceiling for potential traps. It was slow going, but safer than just charging through. After a calm stretch of cave, she paused momentarily to drink some water and eat a few mouthfuls of the bread she had brought along for rations. When she was finished, she continued forward, checking for danger as she went. The young re’hari walked for about ten minutes without so much as an ominous chill. Then she discovered the trip wire by clumsily stumbling over it and unwillingly attempting to kiss the floor. As she crashed down, she heard a whoosh of air overhead and felt something graze by her head. Upon landing, Scarlett paused to make sure there was nothing else coming before she got back up. A chunk of log rested against the wall beside her, attached by a sturdy rope to a patch of ceiling that was just out of torch range. Scarlett noted that the mass of wood was wider around than the span of her arms, and also that she had narrowly avoided becoming the flattest treasure hunter since that unfortunate, handsome rogue in the old fishwives’ stories. She paid more attention to the floor as she crept farther along. The next trap was a little more obvious: there was a large, smooth room with carved panels on the floor. Scarlett held her torch higher and gazed across to the other side of the passage. The squares alternated between five different patterns, repeated in varying sequences over the entire stretch of the room. Most likely, they were going to sink under her weight, and stepping on the wrong pattern could cost Scarlett her life. There didn’t seem to be any way but through, so the daring adventurer gingerly put her foot down on what she hoped was the right design. There was a loud rumble behind her, and the path behind her was instantly blocked by a small boulder. “Oops,” she said, looking around to see if that was all. When nothing followed, she took a step to her next guess. Now the rumble was above and ahead of her. She looked up, and realized with great dismay that the ceiling was suddenly a wee bit closer than before. She also noticed the rusty metal spikes that were now glinting dully in the dim light. She had to get out, and she had to do it quickly. Throwing caution to the wind, she launched herself at a run towards the only opening. She barely dodged a set of blades that whizzed across her path, and there was a stinging sensation in her rump. She managed to throw herself out into the passage just as the falling death came within a few feet of the floor. As she looked back, Scarlett realized she had dropped her stiletto just inside the room. “Damn it!” she exclaimed. “That’s my favorite knife!” She reached out and retrieved it just in time, save for the spike that had pierced her sleeve and pinned her. Scarlett gazed at the punctured fabric for a moment, and then looked at her stiletto. “I liked that shirt, too,” she muttered as she ripped it loose. Numbness in her right leg reminded her to check her derriere, from which she extracted four small darts. She sighed, and healed herself again. “I hope there’s another way out,” she mused. She drank another swallow or two of water, and then proceeded farther into the darkness. Part III Scarlett paused after traveling several feet from the room of spiked peril. Was the vertigo from being dehydrated? Was it an after-effect of the adrenaline? She sank down to the floor as the cave flipped upside down and become fuzzy at the edges. “Oh, hell,” she whispered. “The darts . . . ” Scarlett had recalled being told the treasure had been here a long time, so when the feeling had returned, she had assumed the simple healing had canceled out any residual poison. These were the types of mistakes that made the difference between being the hero of a ballad sung by the fireside, and being the subject of a fable told to children at bedtime. “(says the first half of a spell slowly but correctly, then trails off, says the wrong word, trails of again, “no . . .” says the right word but badly slurred)” Scarlett’s vision was going dark, even in the torchlight. “. . . That’s not right . . .” she murmured just before she passed out on the floor. When Scarlett awoke, she felt fine. She sat up after a few seconds and looked around. She had been lying on her back, apparently, though she could have sworn she had slumped to the side when she lost consciousness. The torch caught her attention first; it had been on the verge of going out, and now there was a freshly lit torch next to the wall. She stood, and then strode over to pick it up. She turned to continue her hunt for the treasure, but stopped suddenly when she noticed something drawn on the stone floor. Bringing the torch closer to see it more clearly, she stared down at the neat, red letters that spelled out WAKE UP NO SLEEPING ON THE JOB “How queer,” she finally commented. She checked to make sure she still had both her stiletto and her scimitar, and then went on her way with a nagging sense of confused paranoia. After what seemed like a silent eternity, Scarlett’s torch had almost burned out, and she had to pause to light a new one. It took her several tries, because there was now a noticeable flow of air in the passageway. When she finally succeeded, the orange and black re’hari raised the flame high over her head to get a better view of her surroundings. In front of her, the path split to form two new tunnels. “The man at the tavern never mentioned this part,” she mused. She thought she saw a mark of some sort on the rock between the diverging routes, and she stepped forward and squinted to make it out. A thin, straight red arrow pointed to her left. She felt an overwhelming urge to turn right. What to do? The breeze travelled away from her, down into the depths, so she couldn’t try to smell the air for danger. Whoever had left the red arrow must have also been responsible for the message earlier. Said person was also likely to be the reason Scarlett had survived the poison in the darts. Would this Good Samaritan have saved her from poison only to lead her into trouble now? “Left it is,” she decided, and her light quickly hurried down into the abyss. Part IV Scarlett had stopped several times to rehydrate and eat, and had used two more torches, by the time she got to the great cavern. She had not encountered any more problems since following the arrow, but she had not let her guard down. Now she stood at the entrance of the chamber, and looked it over carefully. Stretching out in front of her was a vast expanse of what appeared to be bare stone floor. Several objects hung on the wall in various places, but all Scarlett could discern of them from where she stood was that they seemed to be slightly reflective. On her right and left, there were notches in the wall shaped to accommodate either a torch or a lantern. She could barely make out a pedestal of some sort at the far end of the room. Deciding to take a chance, Scarlett placed the handle of her light into the notch on her left. Instantly, the room became noticeably brighter. The re’hari grimaced in the sudden light. Once her eyes had adjusted, she looked around again, and realized the objects on the walls were mirrors placed to reflect any light placed by the entrance. She considered keeping her last torch, but decided she wanted to see the room in all its glory; if need be, she could always grab it before she left. As soon as the second light source was in place, the mirrors helped to fill the entire area with a soft, warm light. The pedestal was now clearly visible, as was the small chest sitting on top of it. To one side of the display was what looked like a gate or door made of wood lashed together in a grid. To the other was a passageway, most likely an exit; at least, Scarlett hoped it was an exit. Her ears flicked this way and that to listen for any danger as she cautiously made her way forward, and she gripped her stiletto the whole time. Everything stayed calm, and soon she was standing in front of her prize. The box was dark wood with a high polish, and at every corner was a beautiful, intricately carved flower. Each of the flowers was unique, and all were detailed with what must have been mithril. After gazing at it so long her green eyes had begun to glaze, and after her heart had ceased its racing, Scarlett sheathed her stiletto and lifted the chest. The second she picked it up, there was a loud, grating metallic noise, like the sound of old gears attempting to turn despite centuries of rust. She turned in the direction of the opening gate, and saw the flare of bright red eyes just inside the darkness. And then it opened it mouth and displayed its teeth. “Dear gods, what teeth . . . Son of a cheap ugly wharfrat!” Scarlett exclaimed, and high-tailed it down the other passageway. Behind her, Whatever It Was growled and howled and snarled impatiently while its cage strained to finish opening. She didn’t get more than about 10 paces before she realized that she had no light. The reflected brilliance back in the treasure room had only extended into the blackness a few feet. She either needed to run like hell to go back for her torch, or she needed to run like hell in the dark and hope to the gods she didn’t kill herself trying to survive. Still clinging to the chest, Scarlett raced into the gloom. Too faint to have been visible from the room, there was a glow down the tunnel a ways, just around a bend in the rock. If she could make it— Behind her, the obviously deadly Beast had apparently been freed of its confines and had begun its pursuit. It let out a vicious, bloodcurdling scream of rage. Scarlett rounded the turn and stooped to pick up the lit torch from against the wall without stopping, tucking the box under her other arm. She panted, “I don’t know where it came from, but I’ll take it!” There was only way to go, and that’s where she went. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” she gasped. Taking another bend with the beast just at the last corner, she chided herself, “There’s always three traps. Traps ALWAYS come in threes!” The treasure hunter skidded to a sudden stop halfway down a stretch of tunnel. The stone here was crystalline, and reflected the dim light with every facet. There was enough light to illuminate the dead end about 50 feet in front of her. She ran the rest of the way, and searched the blank wall for a secret door to no avail. She heard a very close, enraged shriek of doom. She swung around, dropping the box and the torch. She drew her stiletto. The Creature loomed at the other end of the crude hallway. It glowered at her with those burning eyes, and a shimmer of saliva dripped from its overabundance of teeth. Scarlett glanced at her blade, then back to the Thing. She quickly sheathed her stiletto in favor of the scimitar. The two of them squinted menacingly at each other, and Scarlett bared her comparably pathetic dentition. She took a deep breath. “HAVE AT YOU!” She screamed as she charged at It with both hands raising her sword above her head. It likewise charged. Part IV (& ½) Perhaps all might have been lost for our heroine, had she not hit her toe on a rock and consequently tripped over her own two feet. The sword flew up out of her hands, and the Beast shot over her head. Scarlett heard a yowl of what she guessed must be pain, and then a heavy WHUMPsquish, followed by a whimper and then silence. Pushing herself back to standing, the dazed girl turned and surveyed the scene. Her scimitar lay a few feet away, with a dark ooze along its edge. The torch and chest were still where she had dropped them, but very near them were the remains of It. Scarlett’s blade had sliced through Its underbelly as It had gone overhead, and then It had collided snarl-first into the dead end. She cleaned her scimitar and re-sheathed it, then sauntered over to retrieve her things. “Somebody had a rough time,” she commented over the disintegrating corpse. She held the flame high, and it was echoed in a thousand translucent mirrors. What to do now? How terrible to have survived such an ordeal and then die for lack of a door. She strolled back, looking to the walls for some sort of guidance. She stopped when she saw the drawing. She stared dumbly at the pictogram. On a large chunk of rock off to one side, in crisp red lines, there was a stick figure re’hari standing next to a rock. Underneath, there was an arrow pointing to the right. On the wall beside it, there was a large, neat “X”. “ . . . How . . . queer.” She put down her treasure and light and shoved against the left side of the rock. It slid with remarkable ease to reveal a secret passage. She quickly gathered up her possessions and stepped through. The boulder returned to its previous position. Her eyes picked out another source of light; it was dim, but it was definitely there. She put out her torch, and quietly rejoiced when she realized she was seeing daylight. Up ahead, a sliver of sky was visible through a curtain of moss. Moments later, Scarlett was jiggling the two locks, trying to open the chest. “Come on, come on,” she grunted, her tail flicking excitedly. She looked around and found a hand-sized rock, then smashed the locks and threw open the lid. Inside was a piece of parchment, resting atop what Scarlett recognized as a bunch of kelfer bones. She was shocked into silence. When she recovered, she picked up the paper in her furry hands. The message was written in red, and said SORRY, NO WORM FOR YOU. It was signed THE EARLY BIRD and in smaller letters underneath, if read P.S. BE CAREFUL NEXT TIME—I WON’T ALWAYS BE THERE TO SAVE YOU. Scarlett let the note fall back into the box. Her blank expression became one of annoyance. “Early Bird . . . whoever you are,” she seethed, “YOU OWE ME A NEW SHIRT!” Category:Characters